Uncooked meat products should include labels warning the consumer that they may contain harmful bacteria, according to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. The recommendation comes amid fresh warnings about a food poisoning organism that now causes twice the rate of illness here as salmonella.
The FSAI yesterday published the first detailed report on recommendations for the control of the food poisoning bacteria Campylobacter in the food chain. Campylobacter has become the most frequent cause of bacterial diarrhoea and far exceeds the better known germs, salmonella and E.coli as a cause of human illness, according to the FSAI.
The Campylobacter organism is found in virtually all poultry flocks, the FSAI's chief executive, Dr Patrick Wall, said yesterday. "The birds shouldn't have it but when they come in contact with it, it colonises them but doesn't cause illness. They pick this bug up in the environment."
It lives in the intestinal tract of poultry and also livestock and transfers to raw meat products as a result. Improper food-handling then allows it to contaminate other food products.
Dr Wall said. "You have to take it that this germ will be in poultry." The way to prevent infection was to prevent cross contamination between meat and other food products and to cook poultry thoroughly, he said. Complete cooking readily kills the germ.
In 1999, 2,085 people here were reported with Campylobacter and 1,613 cases were reported in 2000. This is double the rate of salmonella cases, Dr Wall said. It is more common in men than women, especially in young children and young adults.
It causes acute gastroenteritis with diarrhoea and sometimes vomiting. It can be severe and life-threatening in vulnerable people, particularly the very young, very old and those debilitated by pre-existing illness or medical treatments, Dr Wall said. "We are getting over 2,000 cases a year in Ireland," he added, even as the incidence of salmonella infections is in decline.
The increasing caseload prompted the microbiology sub-committee of the FSAI to put together a report, Control of Campylobacter Species in the Food Chain, which contains 38 recommendations for reducing Campylobacter infection. These include advice for the producers through to the consumers.
Included among them is a recommendation that the authority work with the industry to "ensure proper labelling of raw poultry and other meat products in order to advise food-handlers and consumers that these products may contain harmful bacteria".
The organism was not new, Dr Wall said. "It has been there for a while. It probably emerged with the intensification of poultry production."
It was disappointing that so many people, a proportion of whom had to be admitted to hospital, were falling ill with an easily preventable illness, he said. "Campylobacter infection has serious economic and social impact in Ireland. It is vital that measures and recommendations are put in place by all stakeholders from farm through catering and the retail sector as well as the regulatory bodies to reduce the cases of Campylobacter infection in Ireland."
A copy of the report is available on the Internet at www.fsai.ie